SUPER-MOSQUITOES carrying deadly malaria which are feared to have developed on the Dee Marshes may have spread to North East Wales, according to a wildlife expert.

As yet there have been no reports to Flintshire County Council, but an RSPB official confirms that small pockets of the mosquitoes have been noted on the Welsh side of the Dee.

A report published on behalf of the Department of Health revealed there was a 600% rise in the number of mosquito bites in the past 15 years in neighbouring Wirral and Cheshire and scientists are investigating the possibility that the insects may have evolved into a breed of super-mosquito carrying the disease.

Samples from the swarm, which is found from Parkgate to Burton, have been sent for analysis, but experts fear that the extraordinarily wet winters and warm summers could have sparked the evolutionary process and created the dreaded anophelene mosquito which carries malaria in other countries but is not often found here.

Similar concerns have been raised around the Thames, the Severn, the Fens, Essex, south east Kent and the Somerset Levels.

"The RSPB tried to contain the swarm by creating ponds in the marsh away from residential areas," said a spokeswoman for Ellesmere Port and Neston council.

"It worked for a while but now the swarm has spread again."

Colin Wells, RSPB site manager for the Dee, said pockets of the mosquitoes have been found on this side of the water.

"It is mainly elsewhere but there have been small pockets," he said.

"Last summer was particularly bad and we had to take action to cut down the population."

A spokesman for Flintshire County Council said that as far as the authority was aware the county had not been visited by the super-mosquito.

"We have had no reports of this malaria-carrying mosquito in this county," he said. "Currently we have neither seen nor had reported to us any signs at all that this swarm will head towards Flintshire or that it poses any kind of threat.